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23 august 2000
taking a deep breath On April 12, 1998, I buried the following paragraph in my journal entry... All the above talk of money prompted me to get all of my bills together and take a good look at my financial situation. And ... well, I feel like I'm about to throw up. I'm gonna have to be really creative with paying my bills over the next couple of weeks. And I think I may finally have a good reason to quit smoking ... I can't friggin afford it anymore. Besides, how much more miserable can I feel than I do now? So tonight I'll chain smoke the last few butts in my current pack, and see if I can go tomorrow without. Just one day. And then, maybe, tuesday. And so on, and so on. I don't sound very committed, I know, but either way, it'll be a good thing. Even to stop for a half day would be a good thing. I feel sorry for my fingernails, though. And I still remember that night. I gave my pack of cigs (there were only two or three left) to AC and Gabby and told them to get rid of them for me. They say the first week is the hardest when you stop smoking. That time, in 1998, I lasted nearly six months. But then I lit up. All it took was a weak mind and a bad excuse for me to start smoking again. My bad excuse -- my department at work was falling apart -- I was forced to fire a number of friends and colleagues who under no circumstances should have lost their jobs. I felt sorry for them, and I felt even sorrier for myself. Maybe I felt I didn't deserve to be so healthy. By my thirtieth birthday, I was bumming smokes left and right. By the new year, I was buying them by the pack. The phrase "just one won't hurt" is the biggest crock of shit ever spoken. But why am I thinking about this now? After band practice last night, I went out for drinks with Rachel. She has a way of putting me off guard (or making me comfortable, i dunno, it's a two-sided coin) to the point where I just blurt stuff out and spend the next 24 hours regretting half the stuff I said. I guess I'm just normally one who thinks before speaking, afraid to open mouth without first scripting speech in mind. I fear the damage my words will do to others' perception of my self. Or something like that. But I digress... We were calling it a night when Rachel started getting on me about smoking. I listened to all of the awful truths about cigarettes, how they're disgusting, how they make me and my car and everything within a ten mile radius smell bad, and, of course, how they're eventually gonna kill me. She stole my pack of cigarettes when I dropped her off (there were only two or three left) and I didn't object, although I hardly agreed that last night was gonna be the night I quit smoking. And I know I need to give it up, and I know I can, but "now" just does not feel like the right time. But will the time ever feel right? I'm reminded of the scene in "Dead Again" where Kenneth Branagh, after being offered a smoke, says to Robin Williams "I'm trying to quit." And Robin Williams replies something like ... "Don't give me this 'trying to quit" shit ..." and they go back and forth for a while until Robin Williams finally finishes the whole exchange with... "Look, someone's either a smoker or a non-smoker. The trick is to decide which one you are, and BE that." I feel that right now, if I stopped smoking, I'd just be a smoker pretending to be a non-smoker, if that makes any sense. Then again, it may just be a bunch of poppy-cock. I catch myself lying to myself a lot lately. It's not a bad thing. In the past, I never caught myself. A year ago I was smoking, not thinking about it, not pressuring myself to quit. I was in love, in what I thought was a really good relationship, albeit long distance. I'd fly back east to visit her monthly, and we took a few vacations together. One of those was a two-week excursion to the Pacific Northwest. We met at Sea-Tac airport, and spent the next 14 days in each other's constant company, travelling all over Washington and British Columbia. The day my flight left from LAX, I stopped smoking. And I spent two weeks with the love of my life, and without a single cigarette. And I thought nothing of it. We had a wonderful time. The first thing I did when my plane landed at LAX was buy a pack and light up. Back to life, back to the grind, back to the long distance relationship, back to smoking. Why did being with someone I love make it so easy for me to drop cigarettes without a thought? Why did getting back to LA make it so easy for me to just light up again? Rhetorical questions. I'd love to conclude by saying that I haven't smoked since Rachel stole my cigarettes last night. Nope, I bought a new pack at 11:30 this morning. I'd love to conclude with a sweeping and brilliant statement like "Cigarettes are a substitute for everything in my life that I crave but don't have." Nope, I don't think my reasons for smoking can be summed up in one sentence. There is no conclusion. At least not yet. All I know for sure is that right now, I'm a smoker. It's disgusting, it makes me and my car and everything within a ten mile radius smell bad, and, of course, it's eventually gonna kill me. At times I despise myself for smoking. At other times I'd like to think that there are so many other wonderful parts of me that almost if not somehow compensate for this one, horrible vice. I'm growing as fast as I can. (note: since my digital camera has been fried, today's picture is from two years ago, this date) 23 august 1999: : didn't write 23 august 1998: a new kind of normal : I had no idea what I was dreaming, that which was punctuated by the staggered persistency of a high pitched fog horn from Alcatraz Island. The washing of the water (it was a good dream) was making it all alright. [ swim back | email me | swim ahead ] |
